Cuban cold snap kills 26 patients in mental hospital

posted at 12:15 pm on January 16, 2010 by Ed Morrissey

Like my friend Bruce McQuain at QandO, I’m wondering whether Michael Moore will add this to a later edition of the Sicko DVD. Twenty-six patients in a Cuban mental hospital died from hypothermia during an unusually cold winter in Havana:

Twenty-six patients at Cuba’s largest hospital for the mentally ill died this week during a cold snap, the government said Friday.

Human rights leaders cited negligence and a lack of resources as factors in the deaths, and the Health Ministry launched an investigation that it said could lead to criminal proceedings.

A Health Ministry communique read on state television blamed “prolonged low temperatures that fell to 38 degrees Fahrenheit (4 Celsius) in Boyeros,” the neighborhood where Havana’s Psychiatric Hospital is located.

It said most of the deaths were from natural causes such as old age, respiratory infections and complications from chronic diseases including cancer and cardiovascular problems.

The statement came in response to reports from the independent Cuban Commission on Human Rights that at least 24 mental patients died of hypothermia this week, and that the hospital did not do enough to protect them from the cold because of problems such as faulty windows.

My goodness, it’s a good thing that Michael Moore decided to lecture Americans on the superiority of the Cuban health-care system in his feature-length diatribe, isn’t it? Otherwise, we wouldn’t be demanding a government takeover of our own health-care system to achieve parity with Fidel’s paradise.

I live in Minnesota, where it gets considerably colder than Havana for about six months out of the year. Our hospitals manage to keep patients warm, clean, and safe. When was the last time anyone heard of patients dying in an American hospital of hypothermia caused by their stay in the facility? According to my recollection, that would be, uh … never. Where were the staff at this Cuban paragon of medical care? When it got cold, no one apparently thought to close windows, or give out more sheets and blankets, or bring in more heaters … for hours.

What does it take to die of hypothermia? Let me offer you a personal anecdote. When we first moved to Minnesota, the First Mate was still an insulin-dependent diabetic, and one day she had big problems with her insulin dose. While I was at work, she tried relieving the dogs out of the back door of the condo we were renting at the time, and passed out in the snow on a 30-degree day. It took over two hours for someone to find her (after I frantically called the rental office when she wouldn’t answer the phone, whose maintenance man ended up saving her life). She had a core body temperature below 80 degrees, and another 15 minutes outside would have been fatal. And she was seriously ill before passing out in the snow that day as it was.

If 26 people in a mental hospital died of hypothermia, that means the staff at that facility engaged in malicious neglect. And I wonder whether those people were truly mentally ill, or whether they were political prisoners, because even the least-engaged staffer at any kind of medical facility would have had hours to correct that kind of situation before anyone died.

Addendum: It’s also worth pointing out that a mass of people dying of hypothermia in the tropics doesn’t exactly bolster the claims of global-warming activists.

Addendum II: Why is the First Mate no longer an insulin-dependent diabetic? She got a pancreas transplant, a procedure developed in the US and conducted by an American hospital, with complete success. Just sayin’.

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Cue the PSA:
In a recent cold snap, 26 patients at a mental hospital in Cuba died if hypothermia…
They didn’t have to…
But the facility lacked sufficient fuel for heating…
For a quantity of fuel oil equivalent in weight to Michael Moore, these patients would have survived…
If you can find it in your hearts, please give generously to “The Michael Moore Fuel Oil Equivalence Program”…
Give now, because “climate change” is a treacherous thing…
The patients will thank you, but Michael Moore won’t give a rat’s a$$

Addendum II: Why is the First Mate no longer an insulin-dependent diabetic? She got a pancreas transplant, a procedure developed in the US and conducted by an American hospital, with complete success. Just sayin’.

Thank God, and God Bless your wife, and all those whom are organ donors. I’m donating myself, if any of my organs can be used, I want them to go to someone in need. I think it’s noble, and I am so happy your wife was able to benefit from the program, and so many others.

I am going to go off topic here, to make my point. I watched Obama today, with Clinton, and Bush by his sides. I agree we need to pitch in, and help Haiti, but I resent some of the words Obama uses to express that. As if he’s God, and the moral compass for the world, considering all the lies, manipulations, and destruction he’s doing, and causing. It made me so angry I was ready to spit nails.

As if Clinton, and Bush were brought in, to make sure Americans did what they’re supposed to do. When did he coronate himself King, and when did he annoint himself God? Long before anyone even knew Obama existed, America has been giving, and doing, and taking care of…to the best of our abilities, those in need. We’ve been there for years, and will be there long after Obama is a foot note in History….God willing. So for him to exert so much arrogance, as if he has to tell the citizens of this great country what is required of us…he can rot in hell first, for all I care. Sorry. I had to rant that. I also want to add though, I thought , after all the crap Bush has had to put up with this past year, with EVERYTHING being his fault….he was gracious, and far above anything Obama could ever achieve as a human being, for stepping up, and being the stand up person, and doing this when asked, by a man who’s done nothing but hurl the fault, and blame on him for so long.

As for Michael Moore. He’s a putz. Either he’s fully aware of the harsh conditions in Cuba, and hiding those facts, to prove his absurd point….or he’s only been shown what the Cuban govt. wants him to see. Either way, it’s a lie. That goes for Danny Glover too. If you think it’s so damned grand there, go live there for a few years. You don’t see boat people from America trying to get to Cuba….do you?

It’s enough that they get in front of a camera and ask others who don’t make near the money they do, to give, give, and give some more. Which most of us are happy to do. But when it comes to giving, and sacrificing personally…oooooooooh peeeeeeeshaaaaaaaw. That’s just asking to much.

Until Glover started opening his yap about politics, I liked him… well, at least his characters.

Funny how a guy can become rich and famous playing wise, kind, honorable characters with mostly conservative values yet not take away ONE lesson from his parts, and be such a hypocritical leftist loon in real life.

Exactly. Chavez is now trying to tell Soap Operas in Venezuela to be more socialist, and less capitalist in their story lines. Imagine that kind of control, and tyranny being asserted on Hollywood. Would they still spew their liberal rantings, or scream for the violations is poses on their first ammendment rights?

Since Moore praised the Cuban medical system over ours, then Moore should donate all his wealth to Cuba the same way all American CEOs should, according to him and the Dems, surrender to Democrat-controlled Washington.

Andy Stern released a statement that said in part, “Those Cubans on duty at the time of the multiple deaths were working harder than can reasonably be expected from a government employee. . . Such criticism of SEIU workers will not be tolerated. . . Condolences for your loss.”

One point I think you missed, Ed, is that in Cuba a “mental hospital” usually equates to a special place for political prisoners, in other words a prison. The fact that these poor souls died of hypothermia could very well have been as a result of negligence and abuse, not to mention torture. We’ll never know, since the Castro regime has about as much transparency as the Obama administration.

Speaking of media ho’s, No mention despite Bill Ayre’s attempts to be a mainstream media prop

Obummer’s buddies and former Weather Underground terror leaders Bernadine Dohrn and William Ayres along with Code Pink founder and California Democratic fund-raiser Jodie Evans were surrounded by riot police and barbed wire as they demonstrated outside the US and French embassies and the UN Development Program’s headquarters in Cairo for hamas and against Israel .

“Government intervention (some form of regulation) is necessary for a distorted market in order to make it a real FREE MARKET.”

TheAlamos on January 16, 2010 at 5:19 PM

And that is the proper role of the government – impartial referees on the sidelines. Not micromanaging over people’s shoulders.

Capitalism and Communism have one very important thing in common: neither system has a snowball’s chance in hell of working in a fair and efficient manner if the participants can play dirty whenever they feel like it. The difference is that the latter system provides no method of eliminating the conflict of interest.

I have posted that link each and every time I’ve gotten into an argument about Cuban health care with an online lefty. In each and every case they either ignore it or claim that the photos aren’t from Cuba. They’re the most deluded people on Earth and terminally stupid.

The reformed lefty Ron Rodosh tells a great story about a socialist pilgrimage to Cuba he went on in the 60’s. As related by Mona Charen in “Useful Idiots”:

In the course of the visit, despite their Communist tour guide’s manly attempts to obscure reality, Radosh at least was able to perceive that the Cuban people were suffering. Most of the other members of the delegation, however, chose to check their consciences at the door. After visiting a Cuban mental hospital, members of the group were a little dismayed to learn that lobotomy was a widely practiced “therapy” for mental patients (long after the practice had been abandoned in the U.S.). In fact, most of those commited to mental hospitals in Cuba were lobotomized. One member of the group protested, saying, “This stinks. Lobotomy is a horror. We must do something to stop this. It’s exactly what we’re working against at home.” But another pilgrim, Suzanne Ross, was unperturbed: “We have to understand that there are differences between capitalist lobotomies and socialist lobotomies.”

Addendum II: Why is the First Mate no longer an insulin-dependent diabetic? She got a pancreas transplant, a procedure developed in the US and conducted by an American hospital, with complete success. Just sayin’.
Ed do you have anymore info on this? Was it at the Mayo? I have a young family member who is a mother to young kids who is type I. Please let me know where to find out about this. Thanks and God Bless your family.

bloggless on January 16, 2010 at 12:47 PM

FYI on pancreatic transplants. If it is a PANCREAS ONLY transplant, it has a 100% failure rate (5 yr), regardless of tissue match. In order for the tranplant to be a success, you must get a kidney FROM THE SAME DONOR AS THE PANCREAS, and get it transplanted at the same time. Donors are usually victims of some tragic trauma that leaves the organs unharmed. This means that P & K donors are EXTREMELY RARE. I hope your family member is responding well to insulin therapy, because docs usually only recommend transplants if pancreatic cancer is involved and it hasn’t metasticized.

Anybody ever hear of someone dying of hypothermia when the temperatures are in the 40s? I’m not buying it. I’m betting this was a convenient way for the Cubans to rid themselves of inconvenient citizens. Yes, I’m saying they were all murdered.

While I did not see “Sicko”, the fact that 26 Cubans died of Hypothermia in a mental institution tells me two things. One the dead were in the right place for treatment and being treated by their peers, and second that Michale Moore knows how to pick em.

“Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world’s glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC’s 2007 report.

It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was “speculation” and was not supported by any formal research. If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research. The IPCC was set up precisely to ensure that world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change. ”

Gee, the way things are going, we may next find out is that Danny Glover’s claim that the Haiti earthquake was caused by global warming is wrong; that it was based on speculation, rather than on his scientific research.

When it works in their favor, the Warm-mongers can claim that increased hurricanes activity means Global warming or Climate change.

Juno77 on January 16, 2010 at 12:25 PM

Small nit, there hasn’t been an increase in hurricane activity. The studies that tried to prove there has been, have been well and thoroughly shredded.

Most of them just looked at the number of recorded hurricanes, without adjusting for the fact that in the age of satellites, a lot of hurricanes that used to be missed because they were small and stayed well out to sea, are now being counted. Better satellites have made it easier to spot hurricanes that only last a few hours as well.